The Mess That Greenspan Made: 2008-06-29

Friday, July 04, 2008

Julie Alexandria of Wallstrip talks about giant Brazilian energy company Petrobras and answers some reader mail ------ Happy Fourth of July!

Friday morning links

Within five tonnes of a new record at the GLD gold ETF

Thursday, July 03, 2008

The SPDR Gold Shares ETF (NYSEArca:GLD) continues to add to its holdings (see the company's website for details). As of Wednesday, the "tonnes in the trust" for the world's most popular gold ETF increased to 659 tonnes, just short of the record set in March.

Full Disclosure: Long GLD at time of writing

Year-over-year job growth goes to zero

Annual job growth fell to 0.0 percent, its lowest level since November of 2003, as the Department of Labor reported the U.S. economy shed 62,000 job in June and the unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent.

Thursday morning links

An odd choice of images for the new FDIC ad

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

The irony of this new FDIC ad amid soaring inflation around the world, rising gold prices, and hyper-inflation in Zimbabwe (where you see similar looking currency) is quite rich.

The $100,000 is an odd bill, in that it was not generally issued, and printed only as a gold certificate of Series of 1934. These gold certificates (of denominations $100, $1,000, $10,000, and $100,000) were issued after the gold standard was repealed and gold was compulsorily purchased by presidential order of Franklin Roosevelt on March 9, 1933 (see United States Executive Order 6102), and thus were used only for intra-government transactions. They are printed in orange on the reverse. This series was discontinued in 1940.

The circled area in the enlarged image makes a bit more sense given that background.

More winners in the commodity boom

First came the agriculture boom with soaring prices for corn, wheat, soybeans, and other crops. Now, in the upper Midwest, many are benefiting from crude oil being pumped out of the Bakken shale formation via backyard oil wells creating millionaires in North Dakota at an astonishing rate.

Oscar Stohler was raised in a sod house in western North Dakota and ranched there for nearly seven decades. He never gave much thought to what lay below the grass that fattened his cattle.

When oilmen wanted to drill there last year, Stohler, 83, doubted oil would be found two miles underground on his property. He even joked about it.

"I told them if they hit oil, I was going to buy a Cadillac convertible and put those big horns on the front and wear a 10-gallon hat," Stohler recalled.

He still drives his old pickup and wears a mesh farm cap — but it's by choice.

In less than a year, Stohler and his wife, Lorene, 82, have become millionaires from the production of one well on their land near Dunn Center, a mile or so from the sod home where Oscar grew up. A second well has begun producing on their property and another is being drilled — all aimed at the Bakken shale formation, a rich deposit that the U.S. Geological Survey calls the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.

Landowners in western North Dakota have a much better chance of striking it rich from oil than they do playing the lottery, say the Stohlers. Some of their neighbors in the town of about 120, from bar tenders to Tupperware salespeople, have become "overnight millionaires" from oil royalty payments.

There is reportedly one new "oil millionaire" created every day in North Dakota.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this story is how the newly rich octogenarians are reacting to their new-found wealth -with a modesty that almost seems un-American.

A mid-year look at the 2008 predictions

Now half-way through the new year, today seems to be as good a time as any to have a look at the predictions for 2008 made back in January.

Just for fun...

Aside from oil and gold prices going up, about everything else was thought to be heading down in the new year, something that appears to be happening at a rate even faster than believed at the time.

1. Lots More Pain for Housing

There is a near consensus that housing is in for more trouble in 2008, but this is not one of those cases where it would be better to go against the crowd - that will happen in another couple years or so when your friends and neighbors tell you that real estate is a horrible investment. Just like back in 1995-1996, when no one wanted to go near an open house five years after that last peak - that's when you'll know we've hit bottom.

Housing prices will fall another 10 percent nationally, based on the year-over-year change to the 20-city S&P Case Shiller Home Price Index for October 2008 (this report gets released at the end of December and showed a 6.7 percent decline as of last week.)

In some areas home prices will reach 2003 levels, which, in California, would still be more than double the price at the 1995-1996 bottom but will be a painful 40 percent below the 2006 peak. Don't let talk of stabilizing sales for new or existing homes confuse the issue of home prices - home prices will continue to fall as long as inventory remains at historically high levels.

Predicting no rebound in housing was a no-brainer. The Case-Shiller index is now running at about minus 15 percent year-over-year and may moderate a bit by year-end - we'll see. Generally speaking, California home prices have reverted to at least 2004 levels - back to 2003 prices by year-end seems pretty likely.

2. The Dollar Will Continue to Go Down

The eight percent decline in 2007 on the trade weighted U.S. dollar index (against the Euro, Yen, Pound, etc.) was such a success that there will be another, slightly smaller, decline in 2008. By year-end the index will be at 71 or 72 and economists will marvel at how the trade deficit is narrowing and how gross domestic product is receiving welcomed support due to more exports.

The Japanese yen will gain the most against the greenback and both the euro and the Canadian loonie will strengthen, but not as much as in 2007. The British pound will lose ground to the buck as credit and housing market problems accelerate in the U.K.

The U.S. Dollar Index hit 71 in March and has been oscillating around the 72-73 level for a few months now - remember that a collapse of the dollar is in no one's interest (except gold bugs).

So far the yen has strengthened by about five percent and the euro has gained about seven percent - both the Canadian dollar and the British pound are about flat.

3. It Will Be a Bad Year for U.S. Equities

The Dow and the S&P 500 Index will decline by 5 percent and the Nasdaq will gain 1 percent. Foreign stocks will continue to do better than U.S. stocks, but there will be fewer high-flyers than in 2007.

The Chinese stock market will gain more than 50 percent by summer and then lose most of the gains by year-end. The Japanese stock market will be one of the top performers in the world.

Perhaps a bit too optimistic here with double-digit declines so far nearly everywhere and lots of "low-fliers" overseas - perhaps a rebound by year-end. That must have been a typo with the Chinese stocks - "will lose 50 percent by summer" would have been a better guess and the Nikkei is looking quite sickly at the moment.

Aside from energy and big mining companies, it's been a horrible year for equities.

4. Short-Term Interest Rates Will Go Much Lower

The Fed will cut interest rates by a quarter-point at every meeting and at one meeting they will cut by a half-point putting the Fed Funds rates at an even two percent by year-end.

They'll continue to talk tough about inflation occasionally but no one will really care - inflation will be the least of the country's problems by summer.

Two percent by year-end looks like a pretty good bet though how we got there was quite a surprise. With round 3 (or is it round 4?) of the credit crisis about to get started, inflation concerns may get pushed off the front page for a while.

5. Energy Prices Will Continue to Rise

The price of crude oil will rise to over $130 per barrel before ending the year at $115 per barrel. Just like $3 gasoline wasn't a big deal, $4 gasoline won't be a big deal either - unless of course you use your car a lot and/or you don't make a lot of money. Then it will be a big deal.

Natural gas, a laggard over the last two years after a spectacular rise in 2005, will surprise to the upside in 2008.

At the time this prediction was made, crude oil was about $95 after having gained about 50 percent in 2007, so the $130 peak, which looks quite timid now, was actually rather bold.

Crude at $115 a barrel by year-end - that depends on how the hurricane season turns out and how much demand declines. Natural gas was something of a no-brainer as well - see the United States Natural Gas ETF (AMEX:UNG).

6. Gold and Silver Will Continue to Rise

Gold will spike to over $1,000 per ounce and finish the year just below that mark. Silver will hit $22 per ounce and end the year at $19. There will be at least two gut-wrenching corrections that will cause many new investors to make an early exit from precious metals markets, but they'll be back.

People will start talking about junior mining stocks at cocktail parties - just like internet stocks in 1997. (I'm going to keep saying this until it's true).

Gold hit about $1,030 per ounce and silver reached about $21 per ounce back in March while the number of gut-wrenching corrections stands at one. The year-end guesses seem a little low at the moment and we'll see about the junior mining stocks - they've been all-but-dead for a year now.

7. Economic Growth will Turn Negative, Consumption will Decline

This is the year that the American consumer finally pulls back in a big way and real economic growth will be negative in two quarters. Home equity, the source for much of consumer spending in recent years, will vanish more quickly due to falling home prices than it did when people were spending their home equity like drunken sailors.

Well, the stimulus checks are kind of mucking up the prediction about consumer spending, but word came yesterday that the annual revisions to GDP may push one or more of the recent quarters into negative territory (not that inflation-adjusted GDP growth has any real meaning anymore, what with the accuracy of the inflation adjustment being so questionable).

8. Reported Inflation will Remain Contained

More people will realize that the government's inflation numbers are bogus. They won't be happy about it.

Hey, inflation's only four percent. What's everyone complaining about?

It was 15 percent back in 1980, so we've got a lot more pain coming before peoples' moaning and groaning should be taken seriously. Of course the inflation calculation really can't be taken seriously, so, maybe all the moaning and groaning is justified.

9. Job Growth Will Turn Negative by Year-End

State and local governments will cut back on hiring due to shrinking tax revenue and fewer people will eat out - two important props for the job market will be partially removed. Employment in health care will continue to boom and even fewer people will talk about the looming Medicare crisis.

By the end of 2008, year-over-year job growth will turn negative but it will be impossible to really know for sure until sometime in 2010 when the Bureau of Labor Statistics completes all its revisions for 2008.

Help wanted signs at coffee shops and restaurants will slowly disappear which will be unfortunate for those teenagers who finally have to start looking for low-paying jobs to buy their next iPod or cell phone because their parents have spent all their home equity.

There were no net declines in non-farm payrolls until January of this year, but since that time, payrolls have declined by over 300,000 with the ADP saying earlier today that another 80,000 went bye-bye (the monthly BLS labor report is tomorrow).

On a year-over-year basis, job growth is still positive (+0.2 percent) but that number turning negative by year-end is just about guranteed at this point.

10. Hillary or Barack will Win the Election

It's too bad Ron Paul isn't ten or fifteen years younger - in another eight years the country will be ready for him.

At the time, my gut told me to just say Barack but that felt like it was going too far out on a limb - shoulda just went with the gut.

Wednesday morning links

BIS Chief Economist William White channels his inner-Austrian

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

If ever there was an indictment of the Greenspan term at the Federal Reserve, it is yesterday's 78th Annual Report from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the so-called "central bankers' bank".
After discussing at great length the many ills now facing the world financial system and a few proposed solutions in a new "macrofinancial framework" - such common-sense practices as higher interest rates and better governance - they go on to note the following in the conclusion to the 149 page report:

There are many practical impediments to making a macrofinancial framework operational. The first is that not everyone accepts the hypothesis that excessive credit growth is the root of the problem. Nor is everyone agreed that it might prove difficult to clean up the mess after such periods of excess.

Methinks this is a reference to someone with whom we are quite familiar.

The former Fed chairman's name was never mentioned, so this can't be officially counted as a "Greenspan Mess sighting", but the point is clear - despite continuing claims that he would not have done a thing differently, he probably should have.

Outgoing BIS chief economist William White seems to have channeled his inner-Austrian one last time after doing so magnificently in both 2006 and 2007, the Financial Times characterizing the 2008 edition a "valedictory report".

The key conclusion, one that should be obvious to anyone who has taken even a cursory look at the differences between Keynesian economics (as it is practiced today) and Austrian economics, was that it would have been better to avoid a build-up of credit excesses in the first place, paying attention to more than just consumer prices and traditional measures of financial market stability.

A few more highlights, first on the "shadow banking system", the source of what was, by far, the largest source of non-traditional financial market instability:

How, for example, could a huge shadow banking system emerge without provoking clear statements of official concern? Perhaps, as with processes for internal governance, it is simply that no one saw any pressing need to ask hard questions about the sources of profits when things were going so well.

On the root cause of the current crisis:

The fundamental cause of today’s emerging problems was excessive and imprudent credit growth over a long period. This always threatened two unwelcome outcomes, although it was never clear which would emerge first. One possibility was a rise in inflation as the world economy gradually approached its near-term production potential; the second was an accumulation of debt-related imbalances in the financial and real economy which would at some point prove unsustainable and lead to a significant economic slowdown. In the event, the global economy now seems to be experiencing both unwelcome phenomena at the same time...

On asset prices and government solutions:

Should governments feel it necessary to take direct actions to alleviate debt burdens, it is crucial that they understand one thing beforehand. If asset prices are unrealistically high, they must eventually fall. If saving rates are unrealistically low, they must rise. And if debts cannot be serviced, they must be written off. Trying to deny this through the use of gimmicks and palliatives will only make things worse in the end.

Three policy recommendations were offered as a way to improve crisis prevention and crisis management in the future:

The first salient feature of such a framework would be a primary focus on systemic issues. Attention would be placed on the dangers associated with many institutions having similar exposures to common shocks, for example a turn in the property cycle.
...
The second feature would be a much more “symmetrical” or countercyclical use of policy instruments. They would be tightened in the expansionary phase of the credit cycle and eased in the downturn. ... To be more specific, monetary policy might be tightened even with projected inflation under control, given a sufficiently worrisome combination of rapid credit growth, rising asset prices and distorted spending or production patterns.
...
A third feature would be still closer cooperation between the central banking and regulatory communities in trying to identify the build-up of systemic risks and in deciding what to do to mitigate them.

It all seems so obvious now.

Well, actually, to some, it's been obvious for quite some time.

They still call it a "ladder"?

If the future path of the U.K. housing market is anything like the present course for the one in the U.S., the strength of the lower rungs of their "property ladder" will soon be tested.

More than likely, the British will soon share the same fate as their American counterparts, watching the odd juxtaposition of giddy home improvement reruns and other lively television fare about real estate while markets tumble around them.

House prices fall at fastest rate in 16 years
House prices in Britain have fallen at their fastest annual rate for 16 years, new figures show.

Average property values in June stood 6.3pc cent lower than a year before - the biggest such drop since the 1990s crash, the Nationwide building society said.
Prices have now fallen for eight consecutive months, with 7.3pc, or £13,500, wiped off the price of an average house since the peak in October. The average British house is worth £172,415, having lost £1,168 in value in just a month.

The stark figures came as property experts warned that the current housing slump could even exceed the worst periods of the past thirty years.

Separate data suggests that first time buyers have all but disappeared from the market because of the credit crunch.

Personal finance research house Defaqto estimated that the average up front cost of getting on the housing ladder for the first time – including stamp duty, fees and a deposit – now stands at £33,738 because lenders are cracking down on borrowers with weaker credit histories - a rise of almost 50 per cent in a year.

The phrase "get on the housing ladder" will surely go into the history books alongside other memorable quips from the U.S. such as "anyone who can fog a mirror can get a loan".

Commodity prices during the first half

Prices for 24 commodities and five commodity indexes over the last two and a half years are shown in the table below (all prices are as of last Friday). Gains through six months of 2008 have, generally, already exceeded the gains from all of last year.

To learn more about investing in natural resources using commonly traded ETFs, stocks, and mutual funds, see this description at Iacono Research. Or, sign up for a free trial.

Tuesday morning links

And ... we have another winner!

Monday, June 30, 2008

Today's closing prices for a barrel of oil and an ounce of gold were $140.00 and $926.20, respectively, making TP the winner of the fourth semi-annual "Guess the Price of Oil and Gold" contest by a narrow margin over CW, Linda M, and yours truly.

Contest #1 - Dec. 2006 - Oil $ 61.05, Gold $636.00
Contest #2 - Jun. 2007 - Oil $ 70.45, Gold $647.50
Contest #3 - Dec. 2007 - Oil $ 95.98, Gold $834.50
Contest #4 - Jun. 2008 - Oil $140.00, Gold $926.20

I've got a pretty good feeling which of the two commodities will make the bigger move in the second half of the year...

Here are the top 10 finishers:

TP, whose entry was submitted via email (see this post from April for a complete list of all 111 entries and other fascinating contest details) wins a one-year subscription to Iacono Research, where the model portfolio concluded the first half of the year with an impressive 7.5 percent gain.

Your humble editor has been "in the hunt" the last three times after finishing in the middle of the pack during the inaugural contest in 2006. Consecutive finishes of sixth, tenth, and now fourth make yours truly a force to be reckoned with in the future (note that if I ever do win, only "braggin' rights" will be awarded and the first place prize will go to the runner-up).

Thanks to all who participated - the year-end contest will be open for entries sometime in early October.

Congratulations TP - please send me mail so I can get an account set up for you.

To learn more about investing in natural resources using commonly traded ETFs, stocks, and mutual funds, see this description at Iacono Research. Or, sign up for a free trial.

That's gasoline in that hose, not water

This morning's Ahead of the Tape column($) in the Wall Street Journal trots out the same old tired axiom about recent Federal Reserve policy as it relates to financial instability and rising prices, particularly rising oil prices - the old "fireman" metaphor.

Like many others, the "fireman as arsonist" model always seemed to make more sense to me.

Follow the logic, if you will...

In a sense, the Fed's decisions of the past few months were easy ones. Inflation worries never went away, but when the house is on fire, nobody complains to the firemen about water damage.

As seen in the Fed Funds vs. Crude Oil graphic above, clearly that hasn't been water coming out of Ben Bernanke's fireman's hose.

The debate is over

Aaron Krowne over at Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, purveyors of the world famous Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter has written a lengthy piece on the future of the world as he sees it - hopefully this will land in the hands of a few elected officials in Washington so they can at least start to think about some of the real problems they are facing.
Titled Debate Over: It's Hyperinflation (and US Economic Collapse), it should make for some good morning reading for anyone seeking to make the real connection between cause and effect, namely, an unsound monetary system and potential economic disaster.

But any attempt at anything like a New Deal now will simply run into the same financing problems that have gotten us into this mess in the first place. The US dollar reserve currency system is ending, so the same system of borrowing backed by the dollar obviously cannot be the solution. And a war will be no good for stimulus because, well, we already have one (and it's now the most expensive war aside from WWII, and gaining fast). Also worth noting is that many Depression-era programmes -- Fannie and Freddie, FHA, Social Security, to name a few -- are still in place. In fact, Fannie and Freddie basically are the housing market right now.

So despite all this support, our system is breaking down. There is something fundamentally wrong with it that needs to be fixed and reformed. I would argue that that thing is the monetary system (including both currency and banking). We simply cannot keep having all this borrowing and debt be such a structural part of our system. It always reaches a point of exhaustion and collapse. We need sound money, which places natural controls on government spending and dramatically curbs mal-investment and bubbles.

Sound money for the U.S. Government? That's certainly a tall order.

Throughout history, these sort of problems seem to have a way of fixing themselves - think Rome, Imperial Spain, the Dutch Republic, and the British Empire - while politicians sit idly by.

Well, maybe "fix" isn't the right word there...

The entire piece is well done and well worth reading.

Interestingly, on the subject of soaring food and energy prices, the same theme that appeared here recently in Gold, the solution to high commodity prices popped up:

If by some miracle (oil) prices were to correct back to $100, not only would it likely be temporary, but extreme inflation would probably show up in some other commodity, or even (God forbid) precious metals. The need to preserve these trillions of wealth from ailing areas of the financial economy is not going away any time soon. It is going to get worse. In fact, if the authorities had any brains, they'd encourage investment in precious metals to divert immense pressure from food and energy. No one ever starved from gold skyrocketing in price; though it did end a political regime or two.

This will likely happen without any intervention from Congress - there are a lot of smart people out there with a lot of money that they need to do something with.

Buckle up, the ride is going to get a little bumpy.

Monday morning links

Trying to steer something we don’t understand

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Robert Shiller opines on the impact of the current economic stimulus and the likelihood that more, perhaps much more, stimulus will be needed in this NY Times op-ed piece:

Fuzzy as this picture may seem, there is unfortunately even more uncertainty about the rebates’ effects. Much of the recent dynamics of the economy are not captured in Keynes’s theory, in Fair’s Model, or in any conventional econometric model.

For example, these models have not taken account of the reasons for the peculiar lending dynamics in the subprime mortgage market, or of the state of financial institutions’ balance sheets and the confidence that the public has in these institutions. Nor have they taken account of the vagaries of speculative asset markets, mistakes by securities rating agencies and the problems of bond insurers.

THE economy is too complex to capture all these things in any single model. In trying to steer the economy, we are necessarily trying to steer something we don’t properly understand.

We simply do not have the means to quantify all the issues related to the rebates. But the models we do have suggest that the overall effects of the rebates are modest at best.

The reality of the subprime situation, augmented by the energy crisis, at least suggests that we’d better get ready for another round of rebates. There is little talk of it now, but we should be putting in place another stimulus package like the current one, and stand ready for another after that, and another.

For all his wisdom as a courageous lone voice of reason while the late, great housing bubble was still inflating, often times it's easy to forget that Dr. Shiller is, after all, an economist.

As such, his view that better models might enable Keynesian remedies to not only cure the economy's current ills but to perpetuate life as we know it for generations to come, when there is ample evidence that the wheels are now in the process of falling off, is, at best, conventional and optimistic.

At worst, this view is naive.

ooo

This week's cartoon from The Economist:

Wikinvest Wire

Recent Posts

FOLLOW

SEARCH

PREVIOUSLY

Labels

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW THE PRICE OF

STATISTICS AND STUFF

LINKS

Julie does Petrobras

Friday, July 04, 2008

Friday morning links

Within five tonnes of a new record at the GLD gold ETF

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Year-over-year job growth goes to zero

Thursday morning links

An odd choice of images for the new FDIC ad

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

More winners in the commodity boom

A mid-year look at the 2008 predictions

Wednesday morning links

BIS Chief Economist William White channels his inner-Austrian

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

They still call it a "ladder"?

Commodity prices during the first half

Tuesday morning links

And ... we have another winner!

Monday, June 30, 2008

That's gasoline in that hose, not water

The debate is over

Monday morning links

Trying to steer something we don’t understand

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Wikinvest Wire

Recent Posts

SUBSCRIBE

FOLLOW

SEARCH

PREVIOUSLY

Labels

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW THE PRICE OF

STATISTICS AND STUFF

LINKS

Friday, July 04, 2008

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Monday, June 30, 2008

Sunday, June 29, 2008